Читать книгу The Russian Orthodox Church and Modernity - Regina Elsner - Страница 8

The fundamental nature of the research question and the abundance of material require some limitations in order to meet various methodological demands. The context of the question necessitates that numerous interactions be perceived and included in the analysis. The theological argumentation and opinion formation of the ROC have at no time taken place in an isolated space. The political circumstances of the respective epoch, the proximity or distance to neighbouring countries and systems, and the positioning of the respective state with regard to the Church were just as relevant for the theological thinking as cultural and philosophical currents, even if they positioned themselves as particularly non-ecclesiastical. The significance of the Church in the respective society as well as the acceptance of its opinion and claim by social and political elites often unconsciously affect theological discussions. The need for demarcation and identification leads to the convergence and partial mixing of political, cultural, economic, legal and theological argumentation. All these aspects are therefore also significant for the formation of theological models of argumentation. They must not be excluded from the analysis and demand an appropriate methodological approach.

At the same time, the methodological approaches that clarify the respective political, sociological, historical or economic aspects of the formation of theological opinion appear insufficient for a theological debate. The methods of social science cannot or can only descriptively grasp the genuinely theological claims to validity inherent to all ecclesiastical positions. Particularly in the question of the Church's relationship to modern society and its values, the normative character of church statements is significant and must be methodically comprehended. Furthermore, a decidedly theological work must consider the double hermeneutics, i.e. it must reflect both the religious interpretation patterns of the observer and the interpretation of the respective actors already present in religious statements.

Thus, a theological approach is needed which, while remaining in dialogue with the other disciplines and their respective methods, includes the "essence" of the theological claims to validity. This work is based on the concept of reconstructive hermeneutics that Francis Schüssler Fiorenza developed for the field of fundamental theology (Schüssler Fiorenza 1984). He starts from the question of how theology can present and represent the foundations of faith without falling into fundamentalism, i.e. declaring certain ideals to be self-justifying, universally valid and independent of time. This concept seems to me appropriate for the tasks of this work, since it offers the possibility to trace theological principles and their development with the inclusion of relevant background theories—such as path dependence (Page 2006) or critical junctures (Collier/Collier 2002)—without reducing them to historical influences. At the same time, this approach enables the development of criteria for an evaluation and discussion of undesirable developments, which may prevent stagnation in a fundamentalist "that’s just the way it is" perspective.

In fact, it can be critically noted that the method of reconstructive hermeneutics is an approach of Catholic fundamental theology, but the work is primarily to be assigned to historical and systematic Russian Orthodox theology. Thus, an assessment of Orthodox argumentations with Catholic tools becomes ecumenically unfair at least insofar as this difference would not be reflected. Furthermore, it will have to be examined whether such an approach, which can certainly be called modern, can do justice to the Orthodox theology located in the correlation theory, according to which tradition and modern experience are understood as polarities.

However, there are clear advantages to working with this methodological approach. For instance, it makes it possible to explore systematically the various factors of argumentation formation and to perceive the interplay of tradition, historical events and discourse of ideas in the development of argumentation models. In contrast to purely social-scientific methods, the claim to validity of theological statements can be taken into account. By reconstructing the paradigmatic ideals on the basis of theological discourses, the essence of theological arguments becomes visible, which cannot be reduced exclusively to external factors. Such an approach takes the ROC's positionings seriously and assesses them not with external but with their own theological paradigms. The positionings can—and must—be measured in the context of their own tradition, with the standard of their own paradigmatic ideals. Thus, it becomes obvious that certain positions and argumentations correspond more or less to one's own tradition, or that they do not necessarily represent the only possibility of determining a position. The reflexive balance of the method keeps other influencing factors in view, but does not make them the sole criteria for evaluation.

However, my primary concern with this methodological approach is a scientific attitude that does not gain its insights through a mechanical methodological instrument, but rather approaches the theological traditions of the ROC in a versatile and complex manner. This does not exclude the use of the methodological tools of other disciplines, but it will always have to be taken into account that there is a theological essence, which cannot be grasped by these methods, and that the observer subjectively participates in the meaning of this essence.

Finally, the reconstructive nature of the method correlates with the current events in the ROC, as described by Paul Valliere:

“It is too early to make pronouncements about the legacy of the Russian school. Its significance will be clarified only as the Orthodox world, ravaged in the twentieth century, reconstructs itself in the twenty-first. But it stands to reason that, as reconstruction proceeds, the ideas of Orthodox reconstructionists of the not-too-distant past will prove relevant to the tasks at hand.” (Vallier 2000, 401)

In view of this reconstruction of the ROC's own position after the “devastation” of the 20th century, this work can make a significant contribution to the reconstruction of theological developments and argumentations.

Considering the great abundance of material of Russian Orthodox statements on contemporary issues, a selection must be made especially in the second, theological part as well as in the concluding examination of the current debates. This is done in the second part by selecting the dogmatics most frequently used in the theological academies and seminaries. In the final part, the study limits itself to statements of the highest church representatives, the patriarch and the heads of the synodal departments for external church relations and for the Church's relations with society, as well as to the central official church publications. These limitations mean a thoroughly problematic exclusion of the manifold, theologically relevant works of the lecturers at the theological educational institutions and of prominent laypeople, regrettably perpetuating the common focus of the debate on church leadership. Nevertheless, such a selection seems justified considering the dominant role of the church leadership in public perception and the theological education system, which is still highly structured and mainly limited to basic literature. The few references to other theological works beyond these circles are an indication of the further research desiderata opening up.

Finally, the lack of attention to two important subject areas needs to be justified, because they play an important role in addressing the question of the relationship between the ROC and modernity. The first subject concerns the theology of the Russian Orthodox emigration and the Russian Orthodox theological centres in Paris and New York. Without question, the scientific theological approaches and findings of those institutions represent an enormous resource for the question of the Russian Orthodox handling of modernity. Nevertheless, the ROC itself has not yet researched and appropriated these findings.3 For the current theological and socio-political positioning of the ROC in Russia these approaches play no significant role and will therefore only be mentioned at selected points as an opportunity for necessary further research.

Second, there is no space to engage with the important issue of ecumenism in detail. The question of "unity in diversity" has been central to numerous ecumenical dialogues and the theological and socio-ethical questions of the ecumenical dialogues involving Russia represent a comprehensive research topic in its own right.

1 On the Orthodox understanding of theology, which as a "theology of experience" is closely connected with the liturgical life of the Church, see Filaret (Vakhromeev): Otsenka sostojanya, 2000, 20ff.. Alexander Kyrlezhev, a member of the Synodal Biblical-Theological Commission, offers a new approach in this respect with his distinction between Orthodoxy as doctrine of faith and theology as current Christian thought. However, such a distinction does not (yet) correspond to the perception of church leadership or the Synodal Theological Commission and for this reason remains here as a desideratum of theological research. Cf. Kyrlezhev 2009.

2 One problem that arises from this understanding of theology is illustrated by the "Basis of the Social Concept", which, beyond a reference to church fathers and biblical texts, lack the theological concepts and approaches for a profound theological examination of the issues of (post-)modernity, secularisation and so on. See Kyrlezhev 2000.

3 Metropolitan Filaret (Vakhromeev), chairman of the Synodal Theological Commission from 1996 to 2011, in his lecture at the Theological Conference of the ROC in 2000, mentions the theological school of the Russian Orthodox Diaspora in a category with the theological achievements of other Orthodox traditions. He considers that these traditions refer to the issues of the past 20th century and are significantly influenced by contact with other denominations and conditioned by the dynamics of the historical-cultural context. See Filaret 2000, 18f.